The Toronto Police Service has taken another step towards outfitting its officers with body-worn cameras.

At a meeting at Toronto police headquarters on College Street on Thursday afternoon, the TPS board approved $500,000 in funding to “cover the cost of a fairness commissioner and other external expertise” that is needed to oversee and manage the non-binding request for proposals process.

That process is expected to play out over the next several months, according to Mayor John Tory.

“We are not approving them (body-worn cameras) today – we are some distance from that – but I think we have at least taken a step forward,” Tory told reporters following the meeting. “There is lots of homework to be done but I think they will be a very useful tool in terms of law enforcement but much more importantly in building up confidence in policing.”

The move to issue a formal request for proposals comes after the TPS wrapped up a body-worn camera pilot project in March.

During that pilot project, 85 officers within 43 Division, 55 Division, Traffic Services and the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS) were outfitted with three different models of cameras over an 11-month period.

A 100-page report released in September revealed that 46 per cent of officers that were involved in the pilot project initially supported the idea of body-worn cameras. By the end of the pilot project in March, that number had increased to 58 per cent.

The report also found that footage from the cameras was valuable in resolving public complaints. It said that six complaints were made during the pilot project but none were substantiated upon review of footage from the cameras. As well, the footage was reviewed during the course of two Special Investigations Unit probes. In both cases, the SIU eventually cleared the officers involved.

Speaking with reporters on Thursday, Tory said that there are still “big questions” surrounding the storage of the footage from the cameras, including who will be allowed to view it and how long it will be kept. As well, Tory said that there is much “homework” to do before clear policies are created on when the body-worn cameras can be turned off.

“It is not going to engender confidence if in the moment of truth when there is a differing view between the police officer and the public the camera goes off,” he said.

In a report that was considered by the TPS board today, Police Chief Mark Saunders said that the review of the pilot project showed that body-worn cameras “could be a benefit” to the TPS, though he noted that there is “no evidence” that the cameras had an effect on officer conduct.

On the tricky question of when to allow officers to turn the cameras off, Saunders told reporters after the meeting that the TPS will look to follow and perhaps tweak a policy that was developed with a “multitude of agencies” as part of the pilot project.

Saunders, however, stressed that the policy will dictate when the cameras can be turned off; not the officers themselves.

“There are times when it should not be turned on. I don’t want it turned on when I am dealing with a victim of sexual assault or a young offender or an informant,” he said. “Those people who want it on all the time don’t have a full understanding of policing.”

The full cost of implementing body-worn cameras service-wide is estimated to be about $85 million over 10-years, though that number does not encompass the ongoing cost of uploading and storing footage from the cameras.

Discussing the program with CP24 on Thursday, TPS board member Shelley Carroll said that the significant number of dollars at play makes the decision before the TPS an important one.

“This is a 10-year procurement, it is a tens of millions of dollars procurement but more importantly we are setting in motion a procurement that is going to lead into a long term operating cost, day after day after day– so we need to get it right,” she said. “It is really a lot of public dollars.

In addition to the costs already outlined, Saunders says that officers involved in the pilot project spent as much as two hours per shift performing administrative functions related to the cameras. That could result in an opportunity cost of up to $20,000 per officer, he said.